Man His Creation

From chapter 25 out of this book that we've been studying in, and this morning's subject is Man, His Creation. Last week someone must have covered Satan, his work, and destiny, and next week the subject will be Man, His Fall. So, chapter 25, Man, His Creation, hopefully people got a chance to read it, look at it.

So the outline, the subjects we wanted to cover this morning are what are man's basic questions? Questions that have probably been asked down through the ages. And then what are the answers to these questions? How was man created? How can we know what God's image is? And how does man's image differ from God's image? And finally, what is the makeup of man?

So those are things we're going to be looking at this morning. Again, hopefully you guys will have some good answers to some of these things. Let me just ask, what do you think are the basic questions man has asked over the years? I mean, you think back in back in the days of like Aristotle and some of the great philosophers. What do you think maybe are some of the basic questions that man has asked? And is obviously still asking today, but any thoughts coming on?

Maybe some of the questions that you yourself have asked concerning life. Anybody have any? Excellent. That's one of them. Any others? What is knowledge? Yeah, that's good. Any others? How can I really help the situation? Okay. Those are good answers. Okay, let me put up what we think is, and those certainly all Those fit in well. These are the ones that seem to come up time and time again. Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? And where am I going? And it's interesting because I saw just on... I was watching TV the other day and I saw some man had a t-shirt on and he had a cross out Who am I and where am I going?

Okay, so those are the four questions. Obviously, the next thing is what are the answers to the questions? And I think it depends somewhat on the viewpoint you're coming from. If you're coming from a humanism evolution viewpoint versus a biblical creationism, viewpoint. So, let's say the very first one. If you're coming from an evolution or a humanism viewpoint, what might the answer be, who am I? Okay, what about if you were coming from a biblical creationism, as we are, who am I?

Okay. How about the second question? Again, two viewpoints. Humanism evolution standpoint or biblical creationism viewpoint. Where did I come from? Okay. Okay. What would we tell... I mean, if someone asked us Where did we come from? What might our answer be?

If you'll notice, you're missing one page from your handout because those are where the answers are. And I have the answers up here, which you'll get later. See how, when he passes out the whole package, so you would be able to look ahead and see what the answers are. Okay, what about the third one then?

Why am I here? What might a person who's, again, who's coming from the humanism evolution standpoint, what in his mind, what might that answer be? Okay, now from a biblical creationist, you definitely should know the answer to this one. Why am I here? Why are we here? Not necessarily why we are in this church, but why are we here on this planet, this earth? What's our purpose?

It's good. Very good. Okay, finally, fourth question. Where am I going? Now again, from a humanism, creationist standpoint, if they're pondering that, what might their answer be? Absolutely. Absolutely, that is correct. Now, where are we going as Christians, as believers? Where are we going? Absolutely. Okay. Well, we'll give you the answers to all this.

So again, looking at the first question from a humanism evolution standpoint, the highest form of animal, at least for now. Check with me a million years from now and I'll be an even higher form of animal, right? I'm evolving and I'm much higher than I was a million years ago. But hey, give me some more time and I'll be even a higher form of animal.

But for a believer, the biblical creationism We are creation in God's image and likeness. Second question, where did I come from? Well, from the humanism evolution standpoint, we evolved from something, some protoplasm as a result of, who knows what, lightning striking the earth 100 million years ago, and we evolved from something, but not quite sure what it was. But for believers, biblical creationism's viewpoint, where did I come from?

I was created by God. I was created. And to me, that's just a wonderful, wonderful thought that, hey, I'm not just some biological accident. I was created by our Creator. Third question, why am I here? From a humanism evolution standpoint, don't have a clue. Wish I knew. Don't know why I'm here. But from a believer standpoint, our purpose, why am I here?

To glorify God. And when you think that from eternity past, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, who were in perfect union with one another, they didn't really need anything more. They were perfectly in union with one another, experiencing perfect love with one another, and fortunately, they decided that they would like to create man, to share that love with man. And so, in turn, what is our purpose? We are to glorify God and to return that love to God.

So I think that's a wonderful thing. I think it's something we need to keep in mind just daily. What am I doing here? What's my purpose? Well, my purpose is to glorify God. And our daily actions, everything we do should be for the purpose of glorifying God. Finally, where am I going?

Lights out. Don't have a clue. I'm just, from dust, you've heard these things, from dust to dust, well, that's it. They're going to end up being a pile of dust and that's it. Never to bore more, you know, so, but from a, from a, yes. I guess another way of expressing it is that song by Kansas does do the work. That's true. You know, I think when some people think of, of being cremated and they go out and throw their ashes up over the mountains or out in the lake and that's it, that's a done deal.

But where are we as believers going? We're going to be with, as Sue said, we're going to be with our Creator, our heavenly home, our position right now. Our home is not this earth, it's in heaven and so eventually we're going to be there with our Lord. So those are the answers, and I'll pass out that other sheet that I was withholding from you later.

Now, as part of this, we're looking at who God is. In order to know who we are, we want to know who God is. And, of course, we know that God consists of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. So three persons, yet one God. And while they are three, and we speak of them as three persons, they share something in common. Their heart, their mind, and their essence, or their nature, is in perfect harmony with one another.

If we turn to John 1.18, we'll see that God the Son, while He is both man and God, His purpose or His focus is to declare the Father.

If you look at John 1.18, it says, No one has seen God at any time, the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father. We're speaking of the Lord Jesus here. He has explained Him. That is really the primary focus of the Son is to declare the glory of the Father.

And also turn over to Colossians 1.15, speaking of the Lord Jesus. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. and looking at the Holy Spirit to see what his primary focus is. His primary focus is to reveal the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. So let's go back to John 16, verses 13 through 15.

Would someone like to read that for us? Okay, I'll read it. It says, But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak on his own initiative, but whatever he hears. He will speak, and he will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify me. He will take of mine, and will disclose it or declare it to you. All the things that the Father has are mine, and therefore, I said, that he takes of mine, and he will declare it to you."

So, again, the Holy Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit, with the Lord declaring the glory and essence of the Father, and the Holy Spirit declaring and revealing the essence and the glory of God the Son. True, that's a good point, yeah. Yeah, there's nothing being held back. And, you know, when we... Jesus says, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. So, well, we know the Lord Jesus, we have the Word of God here, and through the Word we know the Son, we know the Holy Spirit, and through the Son we know the Father. So we've seen what the Holy Trinity is, the aspects of the Holy Trinity.

Now, here is man. And man, you see, is also, in a sense, a trinity. For he has a body, a soul, and a spirit. And these three aspects of man share one thing in common, the heart, the mind, the essence, and the flesh. So the body is concerned with those things of the world, the soul is sort of a self-consciousness, and the spirit is what we would say is God-consciousness. So let's look at Genesis 1, 26 and 27 to begin with. Starting with 26.

Then God said, Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. Let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over the cattle, and over all the earth. and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." And 27, God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. So, the interesting thing here is, and we'll touch on this later, but notice in In verse 26, it says, God made man. And in verse 27, it says, God created man. Does anyone have any thoughts on what the difference there might be between why one would say God made man and second, why God created man?

Okay, we'll cover that. We'll get to that. But there's an interesting distinction there, actually. Are the words different in the Hebrew? Actually, they are. They are. There definitely are two different words in the Hebrew. So we'll talk about that. That's a good point.

The soul Looking at, well, we're pretty much, you know, we know about the body. Do we have any ideas, what does a soul consist of? What does our soul consist of? Let me talk about soul and spirit. I don't have any thoughts as to what, let me talk about our soul. What comprises our soul? What are the aspects of our soul?

Personality, good. What else? All the things that make us, us. Right, okay. Any other thoughts? We'll cover those later, but that's, yeah, there's, I mean, you often hear, you know, talk about soul and spirit, and you wonder, what is it really? What exactly is a soul? But we'll cover that. And the spirit.

I think that, you know, again, talking about these two passages here, What we'll see is that in the first part it says God made man in his own image. He sculpted us. He formed our body from elements, from matter. But after making us, after sculpting us in his image, we didn't really have We really didn't have life, in a sense. And in the second part, he says he created us in his own image.

I think that was the addition of the soul and spirit, where we can then really have a personality, where we can really be able to have that fellowship with God. So we're going to look at that a little more, Again, man, the important thing here is that we also are a trinity, just like God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, but our trinity is body, soul, and spirit.

We'll look at that in a little more detail. Now, we want to know, it's important that we know what God's glory is. Because we say that we were made in the image and likeness of God. Well, what is that image and likeness of God? And Hal has this nice little catchy phrase, his list. This is to sort of help us remember what these things are, what the essence of God is.

And so the first part, the HIS, God's glory, he is holy, and that his holiness can be further defined or broken down into that he is a righteous and just God. So if we look at, that's God's glory, and if we look at man's glory in that same aspect, well, while we have the capacity, well, I mean, the very word of holy is to be set apart. So we have the capacity to be set apart to God. And we certainly have the capacity to be righteous and to be just or fair. So, again, we can, in a sense, bask in God's glory and share in God's glory to that aspect. Secondly, God is infinite. He is omnipotent. omnipresent and omniscient. Meaning, of course, the fact he's omnipotent, he is all-powerful, he's everywhere present, and he's all-knowing. He's an all-knowing God. But we look at man. Man has the...

While we are not omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, we have the capacity to manifest God's empowerment. As we can, through the Word of God and through fellowship and through evangelizing, we have that capacity to manifest God's empowerment. And, you know, we talk about, we hear that word manifest a lot. Does anyone have a definition for what it means to manifest something?

To display? Okay. More than just talk syllables, it would actually convey the powerful sense of something extra, or someone extra. Yeah, okay, good. Well, let me give you the definition from Webster's Dictionary, several definitions. One is to make clear or evident, to show plainly, to reveal, to prove, to be evidence of.

So we have that capacity to manifest God's empowerment as far as Him being omnipotent. While God is omnipresent, everywhere present, well, man, we are only one place at a time. And omniscience, while we are not omniscient, we have the ability, and this gets back to the soul, we have the ability, the capacity to think abstractly, to reason, to understand, and we have intelligence. That aspect of God is being shared with us.

The next part, God is self-existent. He is eternal. In fact, as I was saying back eternity past, it was just God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They were self-existent. They needed nothing more. But man, we are dependent on God for our physical and spiritual life. And while God is eternal, man is eternal also. And that gets back to the believer saying, where am I going? Well, we're eternal. We're going to be eternally in heaven with the Lord when we leave this world.

So that's the first three. the second half of his list. God's glory is love, consisting of mercy and grace. Man's glory is, while we have the capacity to love and we have the capacity to worship God, we have the capacity to manifest God's love to others, to bring forth God's love and to be a living evidence of God's love, and we have the capacity to manifest God's mercy. We certainly can show mercy to others.

Then the I part there, that God is immutable, meaning He is never changing. He is always the same today as He has ever been and will ever be. No aspect of God's essence will ever change nor has ever changed from the beginning. Now we, on the other hand, we're definitely changeable. But we have the capacity to change for the good and to be conformed to the very image of our Lord Jesus Christ. A truth we can learn, if I can spell that correctly, learn and identify with the truth, and we can manifest Christ's faithfulness. God is spirit, and we have a spirit, and that's the purpose, really, of our spirit aspect of us, is to allow us to fellowship with God.

And finally, God is sovereign. Well, we are not sovereign. On the contrary, we are subject to God. But in a sense, we're sovereign in that God gave us the dominion over the life on the earth. So the animals, the plants, and whatever, we have dominion in that sense.

So, again, covering the aspects, the essence of God, is his list, holy, infinite, self-existent, love, immutable, spirit, and sovereign. Now here is some, again speaking of the image and likeness of God, and thinking about how does man's image differ from God's image. Well, God is the creator and we are the creation of God. And again, that was reflected in Genesis 1, 26 and 27.

And God is sovereign and we are subject, subject to God. God is triune, but man, again, is triune because we have body, soul, and spirit. God is the fullness of glory, and we are in the image and likeness of God. God is a life-giving spirit, and we have a living soul. God is spiritual. And we are natural. God is heavenly. And we are earthly. God is incorruptible. Man is corruptible.

And God has fellowship, total fellowship of the Godhead. And man has fellowship with God. But both God and man has personhood. Again, this idea of the Trinity. So these are some of the differences between God and man. We can look at some of these. We just looked at Genesis 1, 26 and 27. Let's look at, for instance, let's look at Genesis 2, 7 there. The living soul says, The Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostril the breath of life, and man became a living being or a living soul.

Let's look at 1 Corinthians 15.44. In 1544 it says, well the bottom line there is in the last part it says, if there is a natural body there is also a spiritual body.

Let's look at, while we're there, 1 Corinthians 15.48, about being earthly.

It says, 47, the first man is from earth, earthly, the second man is from heaven. As is the heavenly, so also are those who are earthly. As is the earthy, so also those who are earthly. And as is the heavenly, so are also those who are heavenly. Speaking of fellowship with God, let's look at 1 John 1 verse 3. speaking of fellowship, it said, What we have seen and heard, we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.

Finally, we want to look at what is the makeup of man. And so if you read the chapter in the book, I think he went over this rather well, but there's the outward man and the inward man. And so, going back to Genesis where we said that God formed man, well, the Hebrew word is yetzar, meaning sculpted. So, God sculpted man And he did it from material, some material. We think of dust, but maybe there were a few other elements thrown in or whatever, but he formed us from material.

And in doing so, we have the body, and the body is the abode of the soul and spirit. And so at that point, it has everything necessary except life. And, of course, the body decays upon death. So, that's the outward man. That's the thing we see. You know, when you look at someone, you see the outward party. You don't see the inward party, the soul and spirit.

And in Genesis 2.7, then it said, God breathed the life, breathed the breath of life. I think if you have the... the King James Version, it speaks of lives rather than life. Because lives, we're speaking of the soul and the spirit.

I was asking earlier, what are the things that make up the soul? And we had some answers there. The soulish part of man, his emotions, his intellect, his will, his reason, his senses, and his conscience. So those are the things that make up the soul of man. And the spirit is the thing that was added that allows man to relate to God. So that would make us complete with first our body, and now adding the soul and the spirit.

And of course while the body decays upon death, the soul and the spirit lives forever. In thinking about, going back just a little bit, asking why am I here? And the answer was, well, to glorify God. We hear this word glory and glorify a lot. Does anyone have a definition or what they think, you know, what does it mean, what does the word glory mean? You know, we hear that a lot, it's give glory to God, whatever, and we just, or to glorify, and so, yes? I'm sorry? Okay. Any other thoughts on that? Going back to Webster's again.

It says, for the word glorify, great honor and admiration, worship, adoration and praise, splendor, magnificence, and radiance. The word glorify then would be to give that glory to God or to exalt and honor in worship. We hear those terms a lot about glorifying God. I think those are good definitions that we We give glory to God.

We exalt and honor Him in worship. Actually, we're pretty much running out of slides now. Any thoughts? Where if you praise God for who He is, that way you can connect the two halves. God has a radiance and a splendor, as Winston describes. And if you glorify God, you just recognize it as being the truth. And say it. Right. And experience it and reveal it. Yes. Okay, that's great. Any other thoughts? Any other thoughts or comments on this whole subject of man's creation? We've pretty much answered where we came from and where we're going and everybody feel comfortable with that.

I've got a question on the previous slide about the image of likeness back in Genesis. That was true for Adam, obviously, because that's what Genesis was talking about, right? After the fall, was something taken away from that to become our corrupt person? Or was something added to for that corruption part of what we have now? Does the Bible talk about that at all? Good question. Anyone like to reflect on that answer? I'm wondering if something was added or taken away as a combination of both. As a result of the fall? Right. Just compared to what was there. What was there? We were separated. That's true.

Right, and you know, until the cross, I'm not quite sure what fellowship the Old Testament saints had with God versus our fellowship today. But, I don't know, anyone? Wasn't the Old Testament nature created once that happened? I think the sin nature has been with us from... Our nature was corrupted. Our nature was corrupted. But the sin nature itself, I think, has always been with us.

Oh, before the fall? No, I don't think so then. I'm just trying to find out or figure out what the distinction is from before the fall, after the fall. Yeah. And obviously what we have now is sort of a carryover from after the fall. Right. Our nature was, I mean, we were innocent at that time. Right. Yeah. Right. So I guess maybe I'm thinking too much. No, this is a good question.

I guess that maybe part of it is related to the sin nature. Is that something that was there prior but it just wasn't active or something like that? And then as part of the curse it was, you know, sort of unleashed if you will. I think it was just a consequence of choice before there were no consequences because there was no move made. Yeah. Or was it something that was given to us as part of the curse?

Yeah, I don't know, I think that we were, I think before the fall that we We did not have that sin nature. We were created perfectly in the image of God. I think after the fall of us when the sin nature really, I don't know if you can say became active, but it became a reality with us. I think God created us perfectly in His image and it wasn't until the fall that that sin nature became evident and took over. So as far as the image and likeness, are those things that Adam originally had, are those things that we still have?

Or has some of that been taken away? I guess that's... Okay. No, I think we still have those. And because we were comparing those two charts We have the ability to manifest God's glory, and it's our own choice what we do, but I don't think anything was really taken away from us. Anybody else have any thoughts there? OK. You've got some references on the chart page.

There are no references for the definitions that you're giving for the soul and the spirit and I'm wondering if there are verses that back up this division between the two? No, they're really I don't think there really are any any particular definitions in there. Okay, let's look in Hebrews.

Hebrews 4.12, you think? I think it talks about the body, soul, and spirit as a custom. There were a couple of other people that talked about Hebrews. There's a soul and a spirit. There's another one in Thessalonians that talks about there's a distinctly body, soul, and spirit.

But, whereas the sun has a clear purpose and the Holy Spirit has a clear purpose, I haven't seen, when I was looking through, soul and spirit were used pretty interchangeably. So I'm a bit confused on what the difference is between the two as used in Scripture.

So I was hoping for a reference, but I don't have that provision. I don't know of any that clearly gives that distinction or would answer that particular question. Again, I guess all I can say is that this is what the soulish part of man consists of and the spiritual part is the fact that we It's that aspect that allows us to fellowship with God and to communicate with God. But as far as any scriptural passages that really clearly define that, I don't know of any.

Does anyone know of any or have any thoughts on that? We'll reserve that for Hal for next week. We told him we would pass on any tough questions to him. That's good. And maybe there is. Maybe there is somewhere in scripture that would really give some credence to that. Okay, okay. I'll answer that next question. We're hitting with that. What do you think, Marilyn?

I guess you could present a subjective view. I mean, Nebuchadnezzar knew this was outside the realm of his personality. This was outside the realm of his, the way he was, his gene, the way he was as a person. This was something other than him, and it troubled him because of that.

That's true. OK, good thought. Well, I think that we're within about a minute of the bell, so. Further. So I think it pretty much wraps up what we wanted to cover out of this chapter. Again, unless there's any other thoughts or comments, I do want to pass out the missing, missing answers and questions page there. Well, I meant for everybody to take one as you pass it. OK, well. So thank you for being a very helpful and participate in all your participation. We'll have the pros back with us next week.